Wyoming wolf torture case sparks new Endangered Species Act lawsuit – WyoFile

Until a few weeks ago, Wayne Parcell had not decided whether to join a lawsuit challenging the federal government’s decision to allow western states to continue managing gray wolves.

The news then turned to Saplette County, where local resident Cody Roberts is accused of running down a wolf on a snowmobile on February 29, capturing the severely injured animal and duct-taping it its mouth and showed it off at the bar a few hours ago.

Pasele, the former CEO of the Humane Society of the United States, was determined.

‘It was definitely a trigger for me,’ he said.We’re thinking about it, and for me [the incident] Represents everything that is wrong with Wyoming’s handling of wolves.

On Tuesday, Parcelles’ new employer, Washington, D.C.-based Animal Health Action, and five other groups notified the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service of their intention to sue over the wolf’s jurisdiction.

The advocacy groups highlighted the now-infamous animal cruelty in a press release announcing the lawsuit. However, the official’s 20-page legal notice of intention to prosecute only mentions the incident in one paragraph. Kate Chupka Shultz, an attorney representing the groups, called what happened an example of wanton and shocking cruelty not seen in decades.

This isn’t the first time the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has learned recently that it’s being sued by groups that believe wolves in the Northern Rockies should regain Endangered Species Act protections. The federal agency rejected a petition to list the species in February and has been hit with separate lawsuits from groups that notified the government of its intentions immediately after the decision not to list.

The 48-page complaint, filed on behalf of 10 Western advocacy groups, makes no mention of Daniel’s wolf incident, which entered the news cycle a week before the April 8 filing date. Still, at least one plaintiff believes global condemnation of what happened in rural western Wyoming could play a role in the case.

Erik Molvar, executive director of the Western Watersheds Project, told WyoFile, “One of the main claims in our lawsuit is that Wyoming does not have adequate regulatory mechanisms in place to keep wolves at healthy population levels.” The crime committed by Cody Roberts is Exhibit A, showing that Wyoming has no interest in protecting wolves.

Among other things, the lawsuit claims the Fish and Wildlife Service relied on scientifically invalid models to assess the viability of wolves in different wolf populations in the Northern Rockies. Another theory involves smaller wolf populations in states other than Montana, Idaho and Wyoming.

The pending lawsuits from Animal Health Action and other groups include some overlapping claims. The notice of intent to prosecute charges that Fish and Wildlife ignored the best available science and that political and sociopolitical sentiment threatened the continued existence of the species. Another theory is that federal wildlife managers failed to analyze the dangers of extinction throughout all or most of the gray wolf’s range.

Overall, western wolf populations have been growing since their reintroduction to Yellowstone National Park and the Idaho wilderness in the mid-1990s. Wyoming’s wolf population has remained stable, with the latest estimate at 314, despite the state’s predator zone policy intentionally limiting the species to the far northwest corner. Game and Fish decided to file a lawsuit against Roberts for illegal possession of a warm-blooded wild animal, with a penalty of only $250. The commission said in a statement that the incident, which was committed by an individual, did not represent a failure of wildlife policy or management.